The Grantidote and Calderglen High School English Department worked together to discuss the importance of women’s stories and experiences and how both are so often overlooked when we consider the fact and fiction-based storytelling surrounding our lives. This forward-thinking school’s English department runs a yearly project for second years, asking pupils to research and write-up family history around World War I and teachers had observed the stories coming back were never about women. So, to address the missing archive and representation, Calderglen High’s Herstory Project was bravely born.

Rose’s story of phenomenal strength through adversity is lovingly told here by her great-granddaughter, Brooklyn.

My Great-Nana Rose McClory (nee Anderson) lives alone now, but she used to be a housewife and, in her teens, before she was married, she loved to go to the dancing. I am really close with my nana and she tells me loads of stories.

My nana was born on the 30th July 1932, making her eighty-six years old.

My mum, my aunties and uncles have all told me a lot about my nana.

When my nana was born her own mum died. Her dad fought in WWII so she and her sister Mary had to go to a nunnery while he was away. They stayed in the nunnery until she was twelve and Mary was fourteen and her dad remarried their stepmum, Margaret, after the war. They then all lived together and in 1944 Margaret gave birth to a little girl and called her Margaret. Three years later Margaret and Francis, my great-nana’s dad, had a baby boy and named him Francis too. They all lived in the Gorbals, Glasgow, and there was a lot of poverty due to unemployment after the war.

My great-nana and her family used to go to Largs and Saltcoats on holiday but as Rose and Mary were older they preferred going out with their friends. I have been to Largs and Satlcoats a few times with my nana and a few times with my other nana, Maggie. Largs and Saltcoats are fun to go on day trips which is why we still go there today.

When my great-nana was at school she loved maths. She was really good at English too but didn't like any other subjects as much. Maths was her favourite subject because she was skilled at it and she liked her teacher.

When Rose left school she was fourteen. She stayed with her family and got a job in machining and worked in a factory until she was married to my great-grandfather at twenty-one. However, she didn’t move out of home until she was twenty-three as my great-grandad was in the navy. When she moved out of her dad's they moved into a flat in Castlemilk where she still lives to this day, sixty-three years later.

Rose had five children. I have only met three as my Great-Uncle Francis died in 1973 when he was fifteen, he was hit by a car, and my Great-Auntie Carol died due to breast cancer in 1992. I did get to meet my Great-Uncle Hugh but he died from lung cancer in 2007. My gran, Rosemary, died in 2015 due to cardiac enlargement. My Great-Auntie Margaret is still alive and she is 58. Rose’s husband, my great-grandfather, died due to a broken heart twelve weeks after Carol passed away.

When my nana married and had children she didn't work outside of the home, she was a housewife and my great-grampa worked outside of the home. Rose now has seven grandchildren and twelve great-grandhcildren.

My nana has had a huge impact on my life and I’m really close with her. She has had such a hard life but also an interesting one. My nana has accomplished a lot of things in her life, but for me the main one is overcoming cancer. A few years ago she was in hospital, I hated seeing her like that. The day we found out her cancer had cleared we were all so happy - we could have our nana back... We were so thankful she was better.

My nana’s a true inspiration, she always says, ‘be kind, be fair’, and she has had a lot of life experience and been kind and fair to everyone. A lot of my family talk about how my nana is so genuine. She has a lot of respect for people and in return, people do for her too, she’ll be forever remembered for her kindness. I told her story because she stays strong every day and inspires so many people in my family.